GS: Was the decision sudden, or was it the result of milestones not being met to the satisfaction of EA? Had UO2 been a potential target for cancellation before?

SL: As far as I know, obviously without having access to the corporate meetings, the game wasn't a prospect for cancellation until close to the very end, but the momentum to cancel it had been building. The company wanted the product out sooner than we could deliver, and to try to meet their dates, we trimmed features and added lots of staff, which added to the costs. The momentum was building, since the team was so expensive, and we had spent a lot of money already.

screenshot
Concept art for UWO: Origin
These games are incredibly complex, and this type of game is only about five years old, so it's hard to predict how long it took to develop. I strongly believe that these games are the most complex commercial software being produced short of operating systems like Windows or an Oracle Database.

GS: How many members did the UO2 development team have during its peak? Had that number been reduced prior to the project's cancellation?

SL: Around 45 to 50. It was a very large team, right up to the end, and we had been at that number for about six months.

GS: How many of those members have now joined you at Destination Games?

SL: About 15 to 20 in development.

GS: Last question: What was the "origin" of the name change of Ultima Online 2 to Ultima Worlds Online: Origin? That really was a horrible idea.

SL: I won't comment on my opinion of the name! The name change was made as a result of the concern that we'd cannibalize Ultima Online's subscription base, which was also one of the reasons we designed so many features of the sequel to be so different. There was a concern among some people in the company that if we called it Ultima Online 2, we'd create two strong expectations: (1) We'd have to provide as many features as UO, which was turning out to be impossible because UO had a three-year head start; and (2) the game would operate very much like UO, and yet it was my desire to make the game very different because I thought changes were necessary to make the game better. So we didn't call the game Ultima Online 2.

GS: Anything you'd like to add regarding either your ongoing plans or your history with Ultima Online 2?

SL: Working on both Ultima Online and its sequel was an extremely valuable learning experience. There were a lot of things we did with UO that we tried to correct with UO2, and we may have swung too far in some directions, so I feel very confident that we're in a really good position, having learned from those experiences. Our next game is going to be fundamentally different and hopefully much better than previous efforts because of our experience on both those products.
 

« Previous Page Take me back to more GameSpot features »